Shades of Grey
by NerdBot II
Summary: Good and evil, all relative, all shades of grey. Inhuman: animal or divine. A librarian finds himself exiled from terra into a nomadic existance, the search for knowledge is all consuming, as our protagonist is about to find out. My first fic... ever.


Prologue

The harsh wind scoured the desolate landscape, echoing through vast chasms and resounding off the towering cliffs; this blasted landscape was pitted with the scorn of nature's fury, the flat, isotropic surface of the ice had been scarred with crevasses caused by the cruel elements, rushing rivers swarmed tumultuously through these, churning away at the glacier, flowing their destructive way through the labyrinthine striations. All the while the bitter wind relentlessly blew great drifts of snow and glistening frost, scouring away further at the assaulted tundra. As it whistled its way through the scars, it shaped, scoured, piled, and blasted vast towers of snow, compacting them into solid ice, frozen into time immemorial. The withering hail of frozen matter, carving great sculptures of towering beauty, glistening in the feeble sunlight, their edges smoothed through the action of the bitter wind.

'Ironic' – the figure thought, alone in the bleak tundra, a single blemish of humanity on the vast canvas of nature's art. 'Ironic that something so cruel and uncaring in itself could produce something so beautiful' the sunlight caught another of the spires, glinting like a faint beacon, glistening to an empty audience; 'such is the way of life,' he pondered, gazing into everything and nothing simultaneously. 'So often the unlikeliest of things cause the events that shape the future, so often the evilest of creatures cause the most good, and so often the heroics of one can cause the downfall of many.' He was snatched from his reverie by a series of loud crunches, a telltale sign of ice giving way under heavy footfalls.

He remained stationary, outwardly uncaring and unaware. Suddenly a large crackling hammer appeared, dancing with blue sparks, striking with blurring speed and accuracy towards his head.

A scream echoed across the wasteland.

The scream lingered and seemed to join with the wind, blending into a melancholy moan.

'Ironic,' the Chaos Sorcerer thought wryly, as he stared at the prone space-marine, still clutching his thunder-hammer, frozen in rigor mortis, and soon to be frozen for eternity in the uncaring clutches of ice. 'The heroics of one can cause the downfall of many,' the sorcerer reminisced, as half a galaxy away, the minor warp disturbance caused by the would be heroes death, unleashed a horde of daemons upon the unsuspecting world of Mirandus IV.

The sorcerer smiled to himself as he yanked out the obsidian power sword from the fallen marine's ruptured armour. With a splatter of already frozen blood it came free. He held it aloft and gazed at the blade, glowing faintly with a purplish hue, wiping it clean on the deceased's tabard he re-sheathed it and stared into the marine's open eyes. The eyes showed a tranquillity in death that they must never have seen in life. His thoughts plunged through the eyes into the warp, letting his mind wander aimlessly amongst the swirling colours and gibbering creatures, he relaxed himself; strangely consoled by the myriad forms of chaos incarnate. After a while he ponderously extracted himself from the warp, and, soothed by its incongruous continuity, set out across the desolate wasteland.

He trudged, for trudged is the only word that truly describes his action: melancholy, nonchalant, pointless trudging. He trudged across the bleak arctic desert; and as he trudged, he thought. His thoughts were as the whispers of chaos: multitudinous strands with no direction or aim or purpose, he was merely thinking for the sake of something to do while trudging. He thought as he was often prone to do: he thought of the past.

***

"Inigo, come hither." The stoic and pompous voice of the Emperor echoed surprisingly unceremoniously down the stone clad gantries that made up the imperial palace of Terra; the constantly rebounding reverberations seemingly cheapening the regal voice.

The psycher, deeply engrossed in whichever aged tome his fickle mind had taken a fancy to, ignored the voice entirely: blanking it from his mind, despite the latent power imbedded in its undulating tones. The call came once again, and, unable to resist indefinitely, Ini reluctantly placed the book down and made his way towards the source of the powerful voice.

Inigo Flametongue was first and foremost a librarian, in that his entire life was dedicated to the pursuit and accumulation of knowledge. He was the one whom the emperor entrusted with that heavy burden of responsibility: the role of advisor. Ini believed that that trust had been perfectly placed in him, who else could have prevented the complete loss of Medusa V, or caused minimal imperial casualties to be sustained on Kronus, despite all of the Imperiums enemies baying tenaciously for their blood on both worlds. Yes, he exhaled, buoyed up on his memories, the emperor was right to trust him.

It is thus apparent that despite his formidable intellect, he was still struck low by that most common of vices: arrogance. With hindsight it is easy to see this that would prove his undoing.

Ini strode confidently towards the throne room, silently forming the monumental speech he was about to make, twisting and turning it within his mind till each strand had been perfectly melded together into an irrefutably coherent argument. As he paced his way down the labyrinthine passageways of the palace, he caught a glimpse of himself in the burnished gold of one of the many statues adorning those halls. Being the creature he was he stopped, admiring himself in the reflective material. He was of moderate build, by no means as lithe and muscular as the many beings in the Emperor's mighty armies, but by no means unfit. 'Mind over matter', the psycher smiled, the old adage running over in his mind as he remembered the will power required to meld his body into its current state of well-being. Having admired his body he glanced to his face, clean cut with chiselled features, an angular chin and a quick ready smile, however forced it may sometimes be. It is said that looking into the eyes of a psycher is akin to looking directly into the warp. Knowing this full well, he looked deep into his own eyes, the usually quick, darting orbs riveted in on themselves, yet still betraying that telltale glint that spoke of latent intelligence. His eyes were as normal as the next mans in colour: a deep slate-blue, yet as he gazed they became inky blue wells; retaining their colour, but gaining a depth that was infinite in magnitude and perfect in clarity, great vortices, still for the moment yet nonetheless reaching, sucking, clawing for the knowledge they craved. Ini averted his eyes from themselves, suddenly noticing the statue in which he had flaunted his vanity: a Culexus Assassin. He made a mental note to himself on the ironies of existence then walked on, smirking to himself, confident in his own ability.

_The sorcerer smiled wryly to himself once again, in memory of his former self. He would not make the same mistakes today._

Ini strode into the throne room, a look of grim determination on his face, and, if one were to observe closely enough: a cunningly hidden smile. He was confident. Confident as he walked into the room, his footsteps unceremoniously breaking the silence on the polished flagstones. He was confident despite the baleful glares of all the highest ranking officials in the Imperium. He was confident because he was right.

"Gentlemen," he began "the Imperium needs to change!"


End file.
